


Abrams and Miranda first meetings

by SnowTiefling



Series: Abrams [4]
Category: Shadowrun
Genre: Cops, Gang Violence, Gangs, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 15:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20603270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowTiefling/pseuds/SnowTiefling
Summary: Short fiction in 3 parts on how Abrams and Miranda met and their friendship started.





	1. Meeting 1

“Officer Wright, please be advised there is a report of a possible 10-65 in progress in your area. No NYPD customers are currently in the area, do not engage unless threatened, or property damage is imminent.” Miranda’s comm chirped with the voice of her bored dispatcher. She ground her teeth in frustration and then responded, as neutrally as possible “Copy that, dispatch.”

Her pace quickened, as she checked her ARO to find the reported incident. NYPD, Inc may not care too much about the SINless or the average joe-wageslave, the corp served its contract holders and they only cared about their own financial interests.

Officer Miranda J. Wright, on the other hand, did care. Her family had served the citizens of New York for generations, and “protect & serve” was practically in her blood. A small set of foot prints came up on her augmented reality, showing her the quickest path to the armed robbery in progress. She loosened her gun in her holster, and hoped that dispatch wasn’t watching her movements too closely. If she ran, she’d be disciplined for offering free police service to non-paying citizens. If she moved too slow and any property got damaged she’d be reprimanded for failing to uphold NYPD Incorporated’s legally binding agreement to protect local businesses.

She rounded the corner and slowed, her fingers trailing to her gun. 2 orks and a lean troll had weapons drawn, threatening a human family who were huddled together in fear for their lives. The metahuman’s clothes marked them as members of the Blood Moon gang, small time but dangerous, willing to kill.

Between the gangers and the humans was possibly one of the largest trolls Officer Wright had ever seen. “Yer really gonna side with these fraggin breeders instead o’with us?” the skinny troll shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. She could see the larger troll sigh and he crossed his arms.

“I told you Junkyard, I’m not going to let you and your buddies shoot an entire family just cause they didn’t have enough nuyen to make you happy.”

Miranda tensed as the skinny troll began to laugh, a glint of metal as 2 jagged blades slid from the back of either of his hands. She went for her pistol but the big troll was faster.

In a blur his hand flashed forward, his thick fist connecting with Junkyard’s nose. Miranda noted that he must be augmented in some way as he moved faster than any troll should be able to. He grabbed Junkyard's arm and twisted, a sickening snap echoed over the fearful wails of the human family behind him as he broke the smaller trolls arm with cold efficiency. The 2 orks scrambled back, bringing their weapons to bear even as Junkyard’s face hit the sidewalk. 1 cold stomp of a boot to the back of Junkyard’s head ended him, and the larger troll shook his head.

The sound of the roomsweeper going off was deafening, and the large troll stumbled back as the slug ripped his shirt exposing his armored vest, the other ork cursed at his pistol as it jammed. “Is that all you little shits have for me?” The large troll spat, a heavy pistol appearing in one hand from somewhere in his jacket, once again his speed revealing his augmented reflexes. 3 shots rang out, 2 caught the shotgun wielding ork in the chest, ending him then and there, the third catching the last ganger in the shoulder and spinning him around.

And like that is was over, Miranda’s gun was out and pointed at the ganger as he got up and fled, then to the large troll. He looked at her and put his own heavy pistol away slowly. “Officer.” He nodded, turning to the human family “Are you ok?” The humans looked up at him and nodded, then fled past Miranda, the husband muttering to his wife.

“Crazy damn trogs, all of em, frag’em.”

Miranda shook her head at the family, then turned to regard the troll standing just a few yards ahead of her. She could see his horns, rimmed with some sort of metal, and the prominent scar on his throat and took note. A quick scan with her police comm noted his SIN as Dmitri Strakhov, but she doubted its authenticity immediately, as well as that of the conceal and carry permit for his heavy pistol. “I should probably push your SIN through our verification process, Mr. Strakhov.” She said out loud, holstering her weapon. 

He shrugged “Are you going to?”

“Depends, tell me why you helped those people.”

“Because, officer, they didn’t deserve to die to someone with an itchy trigger finger and chip on his shoulder.”

“Good enough. The Blood Moon might come looking for payback. You aren’t going to be getting into any turf wars on my beat are you?”

“I’m no ganger officer. I’m an honest citizen of New York.” The troll was a bad liar, but he was being genuine about the gang. She knew he wasn’t what his SIN said he was though. Instinct.

“Officer Wright, please report.” her bored dispatcher chirped in her ear. She gritted her teeth “Shots fired by gang members, no property damage. 2 gang members are dead. Third fled on foot. Seems to have been an internal fight. No citizens harmed. Do you want me to pursue?”

“Negative Officer, resume your designated patrol. Unit 12 has visual and is in pursuit.” She grunted an acknowledgement into her comm and turned to the troll and nodded “Less paperwork this way. Thank you for your cooperation” She paused and said his full name slowly “Dmitri Strakhov.” He nodded and turned, walking away.

“Good day to you, officer Wright. Thank you for being one of the good cops.”


	2. part 2

The elf was twitchy, and Abrams hated that. The longer their team took in the office building the twitchier Storm Fang got. “What the frag is taking them so long.” The elf muttered again, his finger almost caressing the trigger guard on his shotgun, his eyes darting up and down the dark alley. Twitchy street samurai like Storm Fang made Abrams nervous. You never knew when they were going to snap, what drugs they were on, or how close they were to slipping into full cyber-psychosis and trying to kill everyone around them.

Abrams sighed “You know if things had gone sideways we’d know by now. Either corpsec would be here and we’d be shooting.” Storm Fang stopped his fidgeting to stare at the troll who looked him in the eyes “Or either Shade or Minesweeper would have pinged us on our comms to let us know. So relax.”

Storm Fang’s mouth twitched “Frag off you ugly trog! If Madam Wu wasn’t paying me to play nice I’d just as soon make you eat the barrel of this gun as look at you.”

Abrams frowned and just held the elf’s gaze. The shotgun would hurt, but Abrams was sure his thick armor could handle it. The elf, however, was only wearing an armored vest, and Abrams had loaded armor piercing bullets just in case corporate security showed up. “I’ll remember that when this is over.” Abrams said without emotion, and the elf turned away, back to his pacing.

“Abrams, Storm, we’re on the way out. Meet us at the van.” Minesweeper’s high pitched voice piped up on his comm, and he saw by the change in posture that the elf had gotten the message too. Their decker must have gotten the paydata and the infiltration team was on the way out. 

“NYPD, freeze!” A voice shouted from the mouth of the alley, and Abrams let out a soft curse as Storm Fang’s shotgun went off, echoing loudly off the concrete walls. He caught sight of 2 NYPD officers, one falling back and rolling to the side out of line of fire, the other ducking around the corner for cover. His synaptic boosters kicked in and he pulled one of his 2 stun grenades and lobbed it into the street. It exploded with a sharp crack and he followed quickly behind, stepping out into the street with his assault rifle leveled. Both cops were down, the one that Storm Fang had shot was bleeding. The elf pushed past him and leveled his shotgun at the other “Bye bye pig!” the cybered up street sam shouted. Abrams cursed and knocked the elf to the side, the shotgun blast taking a chunk of concrete out of the street.

“The frag Abrams? They’re dead or we are!” spittle flew from the elfs mouth.

“They’re done. The fights over. If we kill them we will have more heat on us and we might not get away. Cover the door, make sure that Shade and Minesweeper get out. Go!” Abrams growled at the elf through gritted teeth, pulling 2 sets of metal restraints from his belt. Storm Fang pointed at Abrams and cursed in Sperethiel, but he went.

He quickly cuffed the officer Storm Fang had shot , looked like he’d live, but he was going to be in a lot of pain for awhile. “Guys, we had contact out here. NYPD inc. Both are down. Storm has the door.” He moved to the other and muttered a curse under his breath, he recognized the face even as her pain glazed eyes twitched, barely able to stay open.

“Dmitri.” Officer Wright whispered, her tone both thankful and angry at the same time. “I knew you weren’t a fragging honest citizen.”

“Officer Wright.” He whispered with his sub-vocal mic “It's best if you stay quiet.”

“Your friend almost blew my fragging head off.” she whispered, coughing up blood.

“He’s not my friend, he already told me he wanted to kill me. I’m going to have to cuff you now. Got a docwagon contract?” She nodded as the cuffs went on “How long till they come get you?”

“5 minutes, they’ll bring HTR since we’re on duty.”

Abrams cursed and messaged his team. “5 minutes, Docwagon HTR incoming.” He looked Officer Wright in the eyes “I’m going to put you inside the the dumpster in the alley. It's going to smell like drek.”

“Do me a favor then, knock me out.” She closed her eyes and muttered “If I get back to station after this and I’m barely scratched they’ll think I was in on it.”

“It will hurt. And I’m going to have to make it look good for my team. You ready?”

She nodded, and Abrams shouted “You fraggin slot, I saved your damn life!” And his fist connected with her jaw, a solid blow. He pulled back just enough to make sure he didn’t do any permanent damage, hopefully he didn’t break her jaw, and her body went slack. He picked up her and her partner and ditched them in the dumpster, running to his teams getaway vehicle. They peeled out as the sirens of an incoming docwagon medical team became audible in the distance.

“Took you long enough you fraggin trog.” Storm Fang growled at him, once again fingering his gun nervously “You saved the life of a damn NYPD slot. Why?”

He could feel the attention of Shade and Minesweeper on him. They, at least, seemed calm.

“Madam Wu told you I have rules I run by. They aren’t optional for me. You should have listened to her. If you have a problem we can discuss it after we get paid.” He leaned in close “If you have the stones.” The elf’s mouth twitched and he leaned back, looking away from Abrams’ cold stare.


	3. a friendship forged

Abrams sat towards the back of the dive bar, a bottle of beer dwarfed in his massive hand. The Ugly Smile was one of the few troll friendly bars near his home, even so the sturdy bench under him creaked when he shifted his weight. He pretended not to watch the entrance through the haze of smoke, checking the augmented reality overlay from his commlink and casually flicking through news streams. He tried to ignore the constant flow of advertising for “Dmitri”, his false identity. The ARO glitched and vanished when the matrix in the bar flickered out for a few minutes, and Dmitri took off his now pointless glasses and took another sip of his beer.

A few minutes passed and the door of the bar swung open, allowing the hazy glare of the outdoor light to penetrate the dust and smoke. The room quieted down as the new arrival walked in. Tall, human, female. The way she moved and looked around stank of cop, making a few of the bar patrons nervous. Abrams waited, his eyes scanning the crowd. Most of the regulars here knew better than to start any trouble, but the way some of the street toughs were eyeing her made him itch. It didn’t take her long to spot him, and she walked right to his table and sat down across from him. “Dmitri.” She said “Or would you rather I called you Abrams?”

“I guess that depends on if you’re planning on arresting me or not, Officer Wright.” Abrams said with a low rumbling chuckle. He waved to Scowler, the bartender, who brought over 2 more beers. Miranda took hers and sniffed it cautiously.

“No, I don’t think so. You saved my ass, I’d be a pretty sorry person if I slapped cuffs on you after that.” She let out a sigh and took a pull of her beer, slapping it down with a grimace. “Miranda, by the way. And you knew I was coming didn’t you?”

Abrams smiled again “A friend of a friend let me know a cop was looking for me, wanted to know if I was alright with it. When they told me it was you, I told them to let you know where I’d be. Hows your jaw?”

“Fine, thanks for asking, you didn’t break it.” She stopped and rubbed the side of her jaw absently. “And if you hadn’t been ok with who was looking for you?” She asked, already knowing the answer. Abrams just spread his hands on the table and shook his head. “Right.” She took another pull on her beer and leaned back. “I don’t get it though. I can’t peg you Dmi…Abrams. What’s your deal?”

Abrams looked around the bar, some of the regulars were paying them conspicuously less attention than he’d expect, and the street toughs looked twitchy. “Not here, lets head back to my place. We’ll down a few more beers and you can ask me whatever you’d like.”

Miranda’s fingers trailed hesitantly on her beer, and then she let out a slow sigh. “If you had wanted to geek me you wouldn’t drag me to your home to do it, would you? Alright, lets go.”

Abrams slotted his cred stick to Scowler and asked for 2 cases of his higher shelf stuff and escorted Miranda out of the bar. One of the human toughs shouted after them as the door closed “Get you and your trog snogging pig out of here!” Answered with a round of laughter from the table. The door closed on the laughter and he looked down at Miranda’s clenched fists. “C’mon chummer. Apartments not far.”

They walked in silence down the cold New York streets, the few blocks walk didn’t take long. His apartment complex looked old and ratty on the outside. Inside it was worse. They rode in the elevator and Miranda let out a long sigh. “They used to call me that, in school. Because of how tall I am. Shouldn’t still bother me.” She said, quietly. Abrams nodded. “Racist assholes.” He rumbled, tossing her a smile. She returned it, breaking out into nervous laughter.

“Here we go.” Abrams said, stepping out of the elevator and pointing down the hall “Last one on the right. 31A1.” Miranda nodded and walked down the hall after the troll. He pointed to the 3 which had come loose from its screw and turned sideways. “or M1A1, whichever you prefer.” She looked at him quizzically. “It was a tank, old 20th century. The M1A1 main battle tank for the U.S. Army, the Abrams.” He grinned and she just shook her head, following him into the apartment.

The apartment was small, the floor covered in an old stained burgundy rug. The mossy green walls had a few bad posters from local bands haphazardly put up. The ceiling was tall enough for the troll to stand up, but barely. “One of the ‘racial outreach’ buildings put up in the early 60′s?” She asked and Abrams nodded. “I’m lucky to have it. Its not much…” He started but she cut him off. “Its cozy.” She flopped into one of the beanbags he had thrown around for seating.

“O.K. chummer, I’m here. We’ve got our beers. What’s your deal?” She said, cracking open two beers and setting one down for him on his makeshift coffee table. he laughed and picked it up, taking a long draw and flopping down. “Well what did you want to know Miranda?”

“You’re a shadowrunner, that much is obvious.” She stated simply, bracing herself with a long draw on her drink. “But you protect strangers from gangers, you didn’t let your friend blow my head off. You had the chance to have me geeked before I even got to the bar tonight. But you didn’t. That doesn’t make any sense. Runners are supposed to be psychotic terrorists.” She stopped and looked up, holding his gaze in her own. Determination and curiosity making her gaze unwavering. “And you don’t seem to be the psychotic murdering type.”

“Like Storm Fang, the elf that almost geeked you? Yeah, I’ve run into plenty like him in the shadows. 2 or 3 screws loose, no morals to speak of. Would geek his own mom if you waved enough cred under his nose.” Abrams scowled. “Yeah, the trids are half right. Some shadowrunners are drugged up soulless monsters.”

“But not all, apparently.” She said, smiling.

“No. Some of us are just trying to get by, do the work we get paid to do, and go home at night.” He sighed, leaning back. “Look, you work for the corporations right?”

“Well, we’ll see. I’m on administrative leave while they investigate the incident. With pay, thankfully.” She smirked. “As long as they don’t find any evidence of collaboration with your little band I’ll be back on the job, probably on a more dangerous beat, one with more gangers and a lower life expectancy.”

“Drek, sorry to hear that. When you’re on the job though, if your boss tells you not to arrest that guy, or not to protect that group of people because they aren’t covered under your contract, you’d get in trouble if you did, right? Protect and serve, but not the people, just the policy holders.”

“Yeah.” She said, grimacing.

“And that’s a pile of drek. You aren’t free.” He shook his head “I get to pick my jobs, who I work for, to a point. So if a job says to go shoot a bunch of people, I don’t take it. If a job says to do a bunch of collateral damage? I don’t take it. Yeah, I’m fragging good at what I do. But that doesn’t mean I have to get off on it. I still have a soul.” He said, thumping his beer down. “I didn’t kill you because you were already defeated. I don’t believe in that drek. You don’t kill someone when they can’t fight back, the only goal in a fight is to disable your opponent. Once they become disabled you don’t have to kill them.” Abrams shook his head and sighed. “Not everyone thinks that though. My turn, why didn’t you arrest me? Or burn my SIN?”

Miranda chewed on that question for a minute. “Because my gut told me not to. Yeah, its against policy. If anyone knew it would be my ass. But, frag. You’re not a monster Abrams. You didn’t have to save those people, and you didn’t have to save me.”

“Yeah, I did Miranda. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I hadn’t.” He looked away, towards the wall as he spoke, a sad look crossing his otherwise grizzled features.

“I get that. But why? It can’t be easy.” She asked, digging deeper.

“Listen, I grew up in The Pit. I saw my share of pointless violence. Lost friends to the streets. Some joined the gangs, others died to the gangs. Or cops” he paused, turning back to Miranda “that didn’t give 2 cents about some SINless trog.” Miranda let out a soft hiss, she had heard about cops like that, rumors, casual jokes around the SoyKaf machine about ‘taking out the garbage’ in The Pit. “Yeah. I can see by your scowl you know exactly the kind of drek I’m talking about.”

Abrams shook his head “You grow up like that you don’t have a lot of choices. You either wallow in drek around you, give in to it, become part of it.” He paused, tapping one large finger on the makeshift table “Or you rise above it, use it to motivate you to get the frag out. You become better than your environment.”

“And that’s what you’ve done?” Miranda asked, leaning forward.

“As best I can. I’m a criminal, sure. But I’m a criminal that gets paid by the corps, same as you. Sure, you’re an employee on the books. You get DocWagon, the corp pays you enough to have a place to crash, to keep you happy and loyal. Me? I’m off the books, one hundred percent deniable and expendable. But its still the same assholes paying me as pay you and every other ‘honest’ citizen around. The only real difference is I get to pick my jobs, I can say no when the man says jump.” He sighed, eyeing his beer. “At least, to a point. Still gotta eat, and bullets don’t come cheap.”

Miranda flopped back into the bean bag, shaking her head “That’s a lot to take in.” Abrams just nodded, watching her. “So what happens now that I know all about your shadowy criminal life?”

“That’s up to you, officer. You’re not going to burn me, or you would have done it already. So, how about this. We trade comm codes. You need me, you call. You want info, you call. You need a place to crash or a shoulder to cry on? You call. You want some racist punk at a bar punched in the face…do it yourself.” He laughed, offering her his hand. She took it and shook it, grinning.

“You’re damn right. Deal.” She said, surprised at how loosely he held her smaller hand in his. “You do the same, alright Abrams?”

“Its Jason. You can call me Jason.”


End file.
